The Wastelands of Phoenix had a long history of conflict, stretching all the way back to the Arizona Insurrection. Today, here, it was occupied by several armed gangs carving out a piece of the desert and preying on the goods coming in and out of the megacity. And soon enough, those ‘several’ would be ‘one’.

They were the Wasteland Rangers, one of the newest gangs of the mesas, and he was their leader. A tough son of a bitch, if you asked him. Staging a coup against the Wings of Flame, he had spent a year biding his time and building up mechs to be able to take on the larger forces. On top of the usual Chickenwalker forces he had a few Sportwalkers, VTs, a couple of choppers, and his own personal pride and joy – a shiny new Warrior, fully equipped with an old-fashioned heavy rifle.

He loved this damned gun. It had a nice long stock to keep the shots stable, a custom underbarrel targeting module, a chrome-lined bore, and a heavy autobolt feed system. It was so powerful, in fact, that it had to use old-style brass cartridges just to handle the force of the gunpowder! The new ventilation in the back of his warehouse showed just how good this thing was. Once they captured a few more mechs and showed that they were serious contenders, nothing would stop them. Read the rest of this entry →